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So does the faster SoC along with offloading mean this will route a full gigabit per second? I ask because my fiber doesn't terminate where I'd like to put a real server capable of doing that kind of routing (I know, the horror!) :PReply

Um, many consumer-grade routers are already capable of gigabit routing; see the reviews on SmallNetBuilder.com. (However, this requires the stock firmware as it involves using proprietary code that bypasses the rather heavy Linux netfilter. DD-WRT is currently testing their own open-source re-implementation of this accelerated routing, but it's currently buggy.)Reply

SmallNetBuilder's throughput tests aren't very meaningful. Yes, that is peak throughput, but if you have normal clients connected, or want to run firewall rules of any kind, speed drops way, way down. A friend of mine bought one that they claimed would do 950 Mbps, but he saw maybe half that. Jacked in directly, bypassing the router, he got the full gigabit.

For example, the R7000, SmallNetBuilder says is good for 930-940 Mbps [1]. DDWRT says that with stock firmware (ie, not actually running DDWRT), it's good for 450 Mbps [2], which is what my friend is seeing (with DDWRT, 360 Mbps, which is the proprietary hardware you mentioned).

I don't know quite all the detail of what they're doing, but they're turning everything off and tuning everything to get best case scenario throughput that no one in actual normal use will see. It's disappointing there isn't a better resource for real work throughput testing. I guess there just aren't enough people who actually need it.

According to smallnetbuilder.com: "If you're looking for MU-MIMO support, you're also out of luck. NETGEAR said that the R7500 will not support Multi-User MIMO when shipments begin, but it will be added via a future firmware upgrade."Reply